Are you sensing something?

Have you ever tried to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar? Or "guesstimated" the number of people who were at the concert last night? Number sense is your intuitive recognition of numbers and their relationships. You can tell, for instance, that one group of circles contains more shapes than another, even though you don't know the exact number. This is an ability shared with many animals, and helps them (and us, in days gone by) to survive.

These days, however, we tend to emphasize and place value on outright calculation in schools. If Jimmy has ten apples and he gives away two, how many does he have left?

What's your number sense?

Panamath measures your number sense and approximate number system (ANS) aptitude. Recent research has demonstrated a relationship between performance on this test and basic mathematical ability. Through a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, we have made this test publicly available free of charge so that researchers can use it in their studies, educators can assess their students, and anyone of any age can test themselves.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL0937675. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
www.nsf.gov